4.3. Black History and Abolitionism

Black Experience through Civil War

→ General sense of (political) disillusion

  • American Revolution → was foundation, slavery remained

  • Civil War 1861-1865, 1863 Emancipation Proclamation → formal end to slavery, but not of racism

Slavery

  • 1. slaves 1619 in Jamestown

  • linked to Southern plantation system

  • high numbers

  • legal status as property

  • slave codes: how to treat slaves

  • part of economic system (working on farms)

→ Siginificance of 1619 for rest of American development and history

African/Black Heritage survived in oral tradition

  • sacred forms

    • songs, prayer, sermons

  • secular forms

    • work sonds, secular rhymes and songs, blues, jazz and stories

  • Also dances, wordless musical performaces, stage shows and visual art forms

  • helped to survive, could convey secret messages

  • not only victims but also contributers to American culture

African American Writing

Center:

  • Will/need to survive under

  • legal oppression and dehumanization

  • collectivity (collective experiences)

  • interrelations Whites-Blacks

  • Will to preserve African heritage

→ African American literature as integral part of American literature

African American Poetry

3 early poets

  • Lucy Terry “Bars Fight, August 25, 1746” 1885

  • Jupiter Hammon “An evening thought, salvation by Christ” 1760

  • Phillis Wheatly

Phillis Wheatly 1753-1784

  • was captured and sold, able to educate herself and set free 1773

  • “Poems on various Subjects, religious and Moral” 1773

  • had three sources: Bibel, Latin/Greek, Neoclassical English

  • Neoclasical, conventional poetry

  • Perspectives and concerns:

    • African American as race

    • Woman and gender

    • American: colonial/postcolonial/national

    • artist → poetological

  • e.g. “On being brought from Africa to America”

    • 1. glance: Christian

    • But: discusses current situation and rejects prejudieces

    • works with oral tradition e.g. “benighted”

    • Ambivalence

    • subtle undertones of resistance

    • finding a voice

    • Bicultural: moving between two traditions

Abolitionism

  • First half of 19th century reform movement

  • e.g. William L. Garrison 1831: The liberator

  • Waves of publications e.g.

    • David Walker “an appeal to the coloured citizens of the world” 1829

    • H.B. Stowe “uncle Tom's cabin” 1852

  • Orations/sermons (major part)

    • Sojourner Truth

    • Frederick Douglass

  • Folk Poetry, Spirituals, Secular Songs, Folktales spread message

  • Anti-slavery almanacs (often including visuals)

  • Slave narratives

  • Official end to slavery

    • Emancipation Proclamation 1863 by fourteenth Amendment / Civil War Amendments (late 1860s)

Slave Narratives

  • genuine American/ African American form

  • Special position in “new canon”

  • 1760s ff.

  • 1. examples (only men, later women)

    • Briton Hammon 1760, John Marrant 1785, Olaudah Equiano 1789

  • written by former slave or dictated

  • popular during 1840s-1850s → abolitionism

  • indebted to diverse forms (alo non-fiction and fiction)

  • didactic purpose

  • individual → Collective experience

  • sometimes under pseudonyms (bc dangerous)

  • Structure: journey pattern with 3 stages (slavery, escape, travelling) → shows agency

  • stock scenes/characters

  • melodramatic mode of writing, clear distinction between good and bad → reader should take action

  • 2 major audiences: African American and white middle class (women)

Still productive after the end of slavery:

Elizabeth Keckley “Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House” 1868

  • bought own freedom, became successfull as dressmaker, but got poorer again bc of exploitation by Mary Todd Lincoln, died poor

Further beginnings of African American Fiction

  • Frances E. W. Harper 1825-1911: novels, poetry, stories, …

  • William Wells Brown 1814-1884

  • Hannah Crafts

  • Harriet E. Wilson

  • Martin R. Dekany

  • Frank J. Webbs

African American look on 4th of July

  • “What to the Slaves is the Fourth of July” July 5 1852 Frederick Douglass in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, Independence Day celebration, abolitionist speech

  • America was oppressed and freed but: Blacks not included

  • has to mourn deaths, not celebrate, needs movementt → shows hypocrisy

  • Expression of hope for improvement